


Unravel

by daphnerunning



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Dubious Consent, Freeform, Halls of Mandos, M/M, Masochism, Non-Linear Narrative, Selfcest, Sort Of, The Mindscape, This is Russingon but it's primarily just Maitimo figuring shit out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 18:53:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28550439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daphnerunning/pseuds/daphnerunning
Summary: Someone that looks like Findekáno comes to him, and hurts him. Less often, Maitimo can tell exactly who it is, that has come to break him apart.
Relationships: Fingon | Findekáno/Maedhros | Maitimo, Maedhros | Maitimo/Maedhros | Maitimo, Maedhros | Maitimo/Sauron | Mairon
Comments: 26
Kudos: 48





	Unravel

**Author's Note:**

> Imma be real I was on Discord last night and upset and someone said "take it out on your favorite elf" so...

Sometimes, an elf with gold in his long black braids kissed Maitimo, and touched him, and hurt him.

“You need this, don’t you?” he panted, as the pain arced through Maitimo’s body. He struck again and again, turning skin red, black, purple, splitting it in a hundred places, making Maitimo scream until his voice went out.

Or was he gagged?

Once, he was gagged, and--

No, that time it was an elf who only _looked_ like Findekáno. Usually he had hair of red and gold, and was no elf at all, and even when he looked exactly like Findekáno, his eyes shone with forbidden fires. That was the first time, Maitimo thought. Before that--

Findekáno took kisses without asking, too. Maitimo had never been afraid of it before. Findekáno didn’t pause, didn’t stop to make absolutely certain he was willing. He climbed in through the window at Formenos, and ignored Maitimo when he protested, and kissed him until he was laughing, until they were dragging each other down to the bed, until Maitimo was letting Findekáno spread his thighs, reveling in the glory and untouchability of youth.

Findekáno slid inside of him, and he gasped, his legs parting wider, wider, until he was shivering and begging, and the pleasure was almost _too_ intense. It was too sweet, too unadulterated, like a cake with no pinch of salt.

So he begged.

“Please, Finno,” he’d begged, and not known what he was asking for, except it was never _quite right_ , not when they were kissing and touching with gentle fingertips and lips. “I need...”

“What?” Findekáno was so earnest, so loving, so eager to please. “What do you need, Maitimo?”

He didn’t know, back then. So he asked for _harder_ , until Findekáno was groaning and thrusting and it was almost exactly right, and it took him years as they marked them before he screwed up the courage to ask, perhaps, if Findekáno could pull his hair?

But an elf who looked like Findekáno came to him in Angband, too, and took kisses without asking, and spread his thighs, and fucked into him with rough thrusts. His fingernails bit into Maitimo’s hips, and the edge of pain made him groan and writhe, and then he was spilling.

And the person inside of him said, “ _Oh_.”

Someone who looked like Findekáno was striping him. Maitimo’s vision wavered, blurred with tears, and that helped, because then he couldn’t tell whether the elf had strange forbidden fires burning in his eyes. Did he? Or was it truly Findekáno, and it was after the Dagor Aglareb, when he’d--

He’d finally grabbed at Findekáno, hungry and weeping, and begged, “You have to make it hurt, I can’t--I can’t spill otherwise, please, Finno--“

Findekáno had been so sweetly concerned that Maitimo had been repulsed by himself, by what was twisted within him. But it was Findekáno, and he was kind, and he tried. His hand trembled when he struck, the first time, and Maitimo’s desperate, needing arch made him suck in a breath. “Maitimo...you really like this? Is it...”

Maitimo dropped his head to his forearms, eyes tightly shut. “I always have.”

“Have you? Well, then you’ll love this.”

A whip cracked out against his skin, splitting it apart. Maitimo screamed, and felt the lash tear into him again and again. There was something inside him--something hard and cold, that spread him so wide he couldn’t breathe when he shifted--and the next strike landed against it, and tears were streaming from his eyes, and he was shuddering with disgust.

And hard.

Blood ran down his back and thighs. The elf with the gold braids and Findekáno’s face dragged his tongue through it, then shoved it into his mouth, making him choke on the taste of copper. “Why, what would your father say? We can ask him, if you’d like.”

The hands were dragging through his hair, leaving bloody furrows against his scalp. It was not Findekáno, it could not be Findekáno, because Findekáno would not be dragging him through the Halls of Mandos by his throat.

“No, no, no, please, please--“

That beautiful face looked at him, and smirked, and reached down, twisting the plug inside of him, making his knees turn to jelly. He held himself up, barely, feeling the cramping discomfort rub against him.

Findekáno kissed him sweetly, and he tried not to flinch. His fingers were strong and elegant, and pressed beautifully against that particular spot that made Maitimo’s eyes roll back, made him bliss out. “You’re so beautiful,” he whispered. “Yes, now. Don’t look away, let me see you, let me tell you how much I love you.”

Maitimo opened his eyes, and fires smirked at him from behind Findekáno’s eyes, and his fingers were as hot as fire, raising blisters and welts. “If you will not forge for me, perhaps I will forge with you as my billet,” Findekáno whispered. “I will heat you, and draw you, and by the end you will be so soft in my hands.”

Maitimo closed his eyes, and bit his lip until it bled. Findekáno’s hands were soft on his skin, gathering him close, and there were no welts on him, and the Light of the Trees was in Findekáno’s eyes. “I don’t mind,” he said earnestly. “As long as it’s you, it’s fine. Maybe it would even be...” His skin rippled with a little shiver, and his eyes had a spark that Maitimo had never seen before. “I wouldn’t mind seeing you helpless and squirming under me.”

“And if...” Maitimo sucked in a breath, but he couldn’t hold back, wasn’t allowed to, he knew that much by now. “If I want you to take me in hand, and perhaps...take your belt to me...”

“Anything. Anything for you.”

Findekáno liked it, he thought. His breath was quick and fast, and his cock was hard, dragging through the raised welts on the backs of Maitimo’s thighs. “It’s--really all right, that I enjoy it? You won’t think me like them, like the ones that hurt you?”

“I _want_ you to like it,” he assured Findekáno, and this _was_ Findekáno, he would know Findekáno anywhere. “I’ll feel so alone if you don’t.”

“Seeing you turned as red as your hair...seeing you gasping and begging for me, how could I not? No matter what turns you thus, you’re _mine_ to have as I please.”

Maitimo shuddered, and let Findekáno spread his legs again. He was sore and aching, and the welts on his back rubbed against the floor.

It was no use pretending any longer that he could tell who was Findekáno and who wasn’t. His marriage bond was gone, trodden into the mud and blood with banners of blue and silver, dissolved in a gout of white fire raging from a split helm. Without that, all he could use was sight and touch and voice, and Mairon had been so good at emulating both after a while.

Findekáno stroked his face. Maitimo leaned up into it, craving that closeness, desperate for that gentleness after an eternity of pain. “Have you finally had enough?” asked that heartbreakingly familiar voice. “Do you know me yet?”

“F-Findekáno,” he whispered.

Findekáno shook his head, and his eyes were sad. “Not yet. You aren’t ready. What would you do with him, if he were here?”

And Findekáno ripped him apart again.

They were back in Valinor, and it had all started over, and he still could not understand why Findekáno could make his blood sing when Maitimo knew he mustn’t, knew they mustn’t, and wasn’t his _hröa_ supposed to be at the command of his _fëa_? Why would it not obey when he said he would not stare at Findekáno, would not yield to Findekáno’s gentle teasing licks and kisses, would not stumble blindly along to a bedroom when Findekáno tugged him forward, as unresisting as a newborn calf?

And why was Findekáno laying him down on the bed, if the bed was a rack, and Findekáno’s eyes were glittering, and there was something in his hand, and then the handle of a whip was shoved into his hole, and he was screaming into his gag.

“This was all tangled long ago,” Findekáno told him, when he stopped screaming only to sob, when he spent himself into Findekáno’s hand and did not know him. “Do you understand, Maitimo? You _must_ show me all of it, or I cannot unravel this knot. Do not hide.”

“No, no, I can’t,” Maitimo pleaded, and tried to hide in the fall of his hair. Then that was gone, and Findekáno’s beloved fingers were rubbing over the stubble.

“Look at me,” he murmured. “Look at me, Nelyafinwë.”

He couldn’t resist that voice. He tried.

He looked up, and grey eyes were dancing. They were Findekáno’s eyes, he...he thought.

But he’d panicked, hadn’t he? After the Dagar Aglareb, he’d panicked, and Findekáno had been so apologetic, and had never dared _quite_ that much again, even when Maitimo could talk him into trying.

And sometimes, he’d panicked when he’d woken, and Findekáno was beside him. Not often. Once in fifty times, and most of the time he could lie still and listen to his heart thunder and pretend by the time Findekáno opened his eyes that he wasn’t weeping in silent terror at the sight of Findekáno next to him.

Something long and thick was working into him, and Maitimo groaned, arching back against the intrusion. “You love being fucked so much,” Findekáno murmured, and stroked a hand up his inner thigh, his nails raking like fire. “Almost as much as you love being hurt.”

“No...”

“Yes.”

“...Yes.”

“Good.”

For that, Findekáno forced him to come, until Maitimo was shuddering and boneless, until Maitimo was begging him to stop.

He didn’t. Findekáno was merciless. He forced Maitimo to feel it over and over again, uncaring of his pleas, and that brutality made him come harder, weeping as he spilled.

He had no body. He could not stop. There was no blissful limit when he would finally stop being conscious of what was being done to him.

“I would stop,” Findekáno told him earnestly. “Even I, who love you least, would stop tormenting you if you only admitted it.”

Maitimo was worn out, and stared up at his lover, his King, his tormentor, his savior. “Admitted what?” he finally asked, because he could not avoid the question any longer.

Findekáno kissed him without asking, and bit his lip until he bled freely. It stained Findekáno’s chin as he pulled back, his eyes intent. “That you never deserved the pain you sought. But that does not make your enjoyment of it any less true.”

Maitimo’s eyes closed.

“Will you find him, when you are reborn?” Findekáno panted, and pinched Maitimo’s nipples, twisting until he cried out, and his cock wearily hardened again. “Will you crawl to his side, and repent of your slaughters, and beg him to take your loathsome soul against his own once more?”

“Yes,” Maitimo panted, and strained forward, forcing Findekáno to pull harshly on his nipples, as he slammed in deep.

“Though he is reborn a King, a blameless shining light to your people?”

“Yes.” Maitimo rutted back, wanting the pleasure, _needing_ the pain. “I must.”

“And will you ask him,” Findekáno asked, with no sign that he was in the throes of anything but detached pleasure, “to hurt you?”

Maitimo shivered. “Hurt me,” he’d begged, and Findekáno had been hesitant, and then enthusiastic, and had once striped him nearly to bleeding, and had been so shocked when Maitimo had come untouched on the floor in front of him. Findekáno had barely shoved his cock inside when Maitimo had come again, a whore for pain as much as he was for cock, or even more so.

But he had ruined it, again, and the next time the first stroke had fallen, he had been frightened, and had lashed out, and Findekáno had been so apologetic even if he was blameless. He had tried, after that, but never again had he been near eager enough to leave anything stronger than a faint bruise, and always asked first. _“Are you all right? Are you certain? You would tell me if you wanted to stop? You remember how?”_

It had ruined everything.

“You will ruin it again, and then you’ll have nothing but _this_.”

Findekáno was suddenly holding him, sweet and slow and gentle. It felt wonderful.

But time was not at Maitimo’s command. It operated here, only at the grace of the Doomsman. Somehow, Findekáno held him and fucked him for weeks, never with more than a brush of fingertips, never crueler than a gentle caress, until Maitimo was sobbing against his chest. “Please! It’s--“

“It’s sweet, is it not?” Findekáno’s voice was cold and mocking. “How long will you be able to please him like that? You have a chance, Maitimo. This is your last task, before you are released.”

Maitimo knew. He’d asked for this. _Unbreak me_ , he’d asked on his knees in front of Námo, the strange thoughts and feelings writ large upon his _fëa_ to one who knew how to read them. He had done his penance for a thousand years or more, been long since healed, grown strong and vital in spirit once more, except...

Except that it was all tangled. Except that he could not be _husband_ again if it was tangled. Except that there had always been something wrong with him, and how could he go back to Findekáno knowing that the _wrongness_ would persist, and would taint what they had? How could he ask to become as one again, and share his mind, knowing that sometimes in his mind Findekáno was cleaving the skin from his body, and sometimes he was kind, and Maitimo’s mind would grow dizzy with deciding which was more of a horror?

So he had gone to Námo, and pleaded, and Námo had looked concerned. But, Námo had said slowly, there was a solution. It could be dangerous. Maitimo had agreed without a second of hesitation.

That must have been the last time he was empty, he thought deliriously. Sometimes Findekáno was inside him more than once, stretching him to capacity while also fucking his mouth, making snide jabs about how he would never please the real Findekáno, could hardly please Sauron himself.

Sometimes an elf who looked like Findekáno dragged him forward by the hair, and offered to show him off to His Majesty Melkor. “Be a happy pet,” Findekáno had suggested, “and the Lord of Shadow will not hurt you so much. Everyone loves a happy pet.”

He had followed that advice before.

For what felt like a year in Angband in his fractured memories, he had been a sweet, affectionate pet, to play with whenever Mairon had him brought in. He had not been High King Nelyafinwë, he had lost his pride along with his soldiers. He had just been a wanton creature of need, happy to suck cock for hours or splay his legs for the audience, because someone who looked like Findekáno was being cruel to him at last, and it was so much better than the loneliness and the brutality of the dungeons. Even if Mairon fucked him bloody, knocked out his teeth and did something to his fingernails over and over, and traced a line of blistering fire up the underside of his cock that made him scream, Maitimo had still obeyed at the end, too exhausted and heartsick not to take some comfort and pleasure in the rough treatment.

Mairon had liked it too much. His master had grown jealous, and hung him from the Thangorodrim, and Maitimo had tried to remember who existed behind his own vacant grey eyes.

“Why are you so stubborn?” There were tears of frustration in Findekáno’s eyes, or maybe they were of hatred. “I’m trying to help you--I’m trying to _like_ you! You must know how difficult that is!”

“Of course. Who better?”

“Cry for me.”

“Why?”

“Because if you aren’t miserable, I am furious.”

Long ago, when he had first come to the halls, he had been desperately sick with self-loathing. It had taken an Age to come to terms with his own deeds, and begin to atone.

This was different.

This had nothing to do with what he had done.

Whoever was behind Findekáno’s eyes hated who he _was_ , not his deeds. Maitimo felt the crack of something hard against his back, and cried out. “Tell me you love me.”

“Why?” Maitimo ground out, and his right hand ached, clenched against the cold stone of the floor. He had not been certain he even wanted it back, but the Doomsman had been clear--he could forsake the healing and repentance of the Halls, wandering forever as a houseless spirit, or he could seek the Void itself and let it claim him, or he could wait, or he could be remade. Maitimo had not realized how attached he was to his scars until they did not appear on the form he wore in the Halls, and he felt adrift, at a loss.

“You must. If you want it to stop, you must.”

 _“It will be dangerous_ ,” Námo had warned him. _“This is not a place of torture. Any torment will have to come from a creature who is not of my making. Lórien can assist.”_

The elf that looked like Findekáno was _not_ Findekáno. He never had been. And Maitimo knew who was behind those intense grey eyes, and quailed from them. “But you hate me.”

Findekáno looked helpless, frustrated. “How can I not? You, who are so weak, who would let yourself be used, but flinch when it comes from the hand of the most beloved?”

“It--it was just one time--“

“Then why do you carry that burden, like a stone about your neck? Why are you so certain you’ve ruined everything? Why won’t you let me go?”

“Why don’t you just get rid of me?” Maitimo burst out, and then he was crying, clawing his own hands down his scalp. “Go--without me, be rid of me, find him and--“

“But he loves you.”

“No!”

Findekáno’s arms went around him, and held him tight, and Maitimo froze as the fear took him--

And Findekáno held him even then, the way that Maitimo had never allowed him to do before, certain Findekáno would be repulsed by his weakness. Certain that Findekáno would be so horrified that Maitimo had thought, for a moment, that he was someone else. Certain that Findekáno would shut him out.

“It was all twisted long ago, but it need not have been.” Findekáno’s hands were soothing on his skin, and he shuddered, and leaned into the touch. “Inexperience and new desires are no crimes. You never gave him a chance, did you?”

“Is it really all right,” Findekáno asked, eager and youthful, his hand trembling on the belt, “if I enjoy it?”

He had.

And that--

That was fine, too, wasn’t it?

A knot came untied. One of many, but he had the end held fast now, and threaded it back through the tangled strands, determined to reach the end. “You aren’t Findekáno.”

“No.”

“He...” Maitimo closed his eyes for a moment. It made little difference, when he was only _fëa_ , but the motion was familiar. “He doesn’t deserve to live with a husband so tangled.”

“No. And you do not deserve to be thus.”

“Stop--it’s too gentle, I--“

“You do not loathe gentleness, Maitimo,” Findekáno said, and brushed long thick red hair back from his neck. “You never have. That, too, was a lie of the Enemy.”

Was it?

It _was_.

But--

“You think too much. If you had been braver before, and asked him properly, you would have known yourself before it was twisted.”

Another knot, now loose slack thread. He had been so young, really. They both had.

“When your brothers or your servitors came to you with questions--‘is this right? am I normal?’--you would reassure them. Why have you gentleness for everyone else, and none for yourself?”

_Because I didn’t know better. Because it was twisted. Because I wanted to spare him._

“You spare no one. You must know that by now. By taking it all on yourself, you only cause trouble.”

“It’s....better, if it falls on me.”

“And if a weight may be easily borne by two, but would crush one alone? How is your sacrifice _worthy_ if all it does is hurt others?”

That, too, untied a knot, because it was right.

“Try again, Maitimo.”

Findekáno lay him bare, and gave him welts, and bruises, and the thick press of his cock. Maitimo groaned, and writhed, and kept his eyes open, fixed on Findekáno. “Take me,” he pleaded, and felt Findekáno’s hands dig deeply into his waist, yanking him back.

He looked up, wrung out with pleasure, and he knew.

It was over.

Lórien came to him, and the spectre of Findekáno grew taller, and his hair turned red, and Maitimo knew who lived behind those grey eyes.

“Are you ready?” Námo asked, a frown on the Doomsman’s face.

Maitimo nodded. He blinked, and then there was only one of him, and his _fëa_ no longer felt weak, split in two. “I’m ready.”

To see Findekáno, the real Findekáno, at last.


End file.
